Golden Threads

For Rail Trail Lights 2025, the Charlotte Center City Partners team commissioned local, public artist Meredith Connelly to concept and create the installations for Golden Threads. Meredith subcontracted 11 local artists to support the fabrication and installation of each art piece. Each artist received hands-on opportunities, training, and mentorship throughout the process to help support their professional development. 

Rail Trail: Golden Threads explores South End Charlotte’s journey from an industrial and textile community to a center for art, design, and technology. This series of illuminated installations celebrates nature’s intrinsic intelligence and the human ingenuity it inspires. Through an immersive, multi-sensory experience, the project invites visitors to reflect on how early innovators observed and applied patterns and principles from the natural world, especially in weaving, community building, and sustainable practices, to shape South End’s cultural and industrial heritage.

Connelly’s illuminated, site-specific displays connect and submerge viewers into glowing, other worldly environments. Accoladed for its ingenuity, Connelly’s artwork has been exhibited in prestigious museums across the southeast— acquired into both private and corporate collections — and has received awards both regionally and nationally.

Rail Trail Lights 2025 is presented by US Bank and Rail Trail Charlotte

Team Lead: Meredith Connelly

Team Project Managers:
Nadia Meadows
Autumn Payne
Victoria Singleton

Fabrication and Installation Team:
Trish Boyles
Hirmani Brown
Nada Esmaeel
Chloe Kaylor
Junior Gomez
Erin Peacock
Denise Sanchez
Marquia Humphries

Soundscape Artist: Emily Sage